Post surgical pain

I get what I call 'zingers'--kind of electric feeling zaps of pain across my chest 4 weeks out; my understanding is that it's normal to have those happen as nerves heal and reconnect and feeling starts to come back to the area. Sometimes they're short little zaps, sometimes they last for a couple of minutes. It's annoying, but also part of the healing process and I've just learned to ignore it. For me, it's painful sure, but more on the 'annoying' level of painful as opposed to the near a 10 on the scale level.

On occasion, instead of an electric feeling pain it feels almost like a mild muscle cramp which I've also been told is normal for healing as swelling goes down and what's left reattaches to my chest wall.

My chest, internally, also itches on occasion, along with the zapping feeling of pain going across where my breasts used to be.

Up until about midway through week 3 I didn't have any pain, but that kind of makes sense as the final stretch of initial healing is between weeks 4-6 without reconstruction and the final stretch of healing wounds can sometimes be the most uncomfortable.

It's pretty common, and for most people, it goes away after a few months though I've heard some women end up with random 'zaps' of pain like that even a few years down the road, but they lessen in intensity and duration.

That said, if what you're having is a constant, high level, unrelenting pain that isn't helped by painkillers, it may be worth contacting your doctor just to be on the safe side.

I can't recall if you mentioned elsewhere that you had immediate reconstruction or not, so this may not apply as I elected for no reconstruction and went flat, but the bottom area of what used to be my breasts, where the incision line is, is still fairly swollen and feels 'hard' if I press on it, but that's just the swelling making it feel that way.

Every few days I notice it feels a bit softer and looks a bit flatter, but it could be several months before it's completely not swollen and totally flat. My assumption is that the areas that aren't flat will feel firm to hard while they're still swollen.

I'd imagine, if there was reconstruction done immediately, that the look and feel is a bit different and I don't have experience with that, unfortunately.

If you get hardness with extra swelling where things weren't very swollen before--and you know you haven't done anything to overexert yourself--or it feels hot/tender to the touch, I'd recommend contacting your doctor as that can be a sign of infection. My surgeon also told me to make sure and let her know if I had a 'feeling of fullness' in the area, like my chest was stuffy or full of liquid as well.

If you didn't elect to have reconstruction, I know this sounds weird, but I found reading through FtM top surgery boards (Susan's Place has a great one with a ton of info) was SUPER helpful as that surgery is essentially a double mastectomy (most being double incision) with nipple grafts and occasionally some minor resculpting to make the chest appear more masculine or at least flat as opposed to concave, but the healing process is really, really similar to a plain old double mastectomy. Those forums were incredibly helpful for me to look through as a lot of people will post about their healing process, with questions, and will post pics of their healing process; seeing those helped me know what to expect a little better and how to manage expectations of what my scars and grafts should look like early on.

While I'm not FtM, it was still a very, very similar procedure that they have done to achieve a flat chest, and it was a good resource to have available.

Yeah, I didn't like the cloth tube top compression binder I got either; it didn't seem to do much of anything for compression unless I stuffed it with padding, which was a pain. That, and even if I put the straps on it, it still slipped all over the place.

I ended up buying a post-surgical vest from Underworks (Power Compression Post Surgical Vest) that worked a LOT better; as a bonus, since it's compression down to the hips, it also easily folds up over itself for extra compression if I feel like I want that. I also like that it has two rows of hook and eye closures so I can choose between a looser fit and a firmer fit.

I'm not wearing it during the day anymore as my PS gave me the OK to not wear compression if it was comfortable to go without it at 4 weeks, but I do still wear it (only fastened down to about where it hits the end of my sternum) at night.

If you're curious about it, I posted pics and a longer description in this thread: https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/82/topics...

Edit to add: I found myself slouching a lot more after my surgery, I think out of an unconscious (and irrational!) effort to 'not pull anything open' by accidentally stretching or standing too straight. It didn't hurt to stand up straight, I was just unnecessarily wary of doing it and still have to remind myself to not slouch.

As a bonus, I guess, at the stage of healing I'm at slouching is now uncomfortable as it bunches up chest tissue that's reforming attachments to my chest wall and trying to unswell itself so if I slouch now my chest aches and reminds me to stand or sit up straight again.